Thursday, December 27, 2012

Holy Innocents

"When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under." Mt 2:16

Today seems like a perfect day to celebrate all the children who have been lost, stolen or killed for the sake of power, money or unearned prestige, beginning with the children slaughtered earlier this month in Newtown, Ct. While we will never understand the twists a human psyche can take that result in the massacre of children, we know it happens, has happened before, and will happen again.

Perhaps because Newton, Ct., is less than an hour's drive from where I live, the specter of innocent children dying will not leave my spirit, and this is not an altogether bad thing. It is important for us to remember what happened in Connecticut. Too often we act as if life is ours for as long as we like and we can spend in any way that pleases us, but the Christian gospel demands something else.

All life is a gift from God and must be spent as a gift for others. When we fail to remember this most fundamental faith demand, we too often wallow in our own failures and losses. That our well- intentioned deeds do always result in success is not the point. That we freely offer others the gift of ourselves is. That is why Christ came among. He was and is a sign that God cannot and will not abandon us, even when we turn away from God and fail to live the Gospel. We have only to lift our heads to find God waiting to lead us again along a path of other centered love.

Today, remember the innocents: children, the disabled, the mentally ill.

How does faith help you face unspeakable evil?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please be discreet in your comments. I will monitor the comments, and only exclude those that are patently offensive.